Familiar with Class Levels
by Red Regent
Summary: "What the hell is a charisma score, and just what are you implying about mine?" Further exploration into the mixing of rule systems. 3.5 rules, not recommended for the lactose intolerant. Heavily inspired by the amazing Sir Poley.
1. Chapter 1

"You."

 _-Brass instead of to gold. Perhaps_ _more valuable_ \- no, that was dumb, she scribbled it out - _certain materials have properties which make them more difficult to-_

"You up there."

Wait. That wasn't her, was it?

Louise looked up from her notes, and it seemed that the object of discussion was, in fact, her.

Oh no.

"What's your name?"

"Louise," replied Louise quietly. Wait, no. That wasn't right. She was a scion of a noble and most ancient… Hang on.

She stood up gracefully, pushing her chair back as she did so. "Louise Françoise Le Blanc de la Valliere," she stated coldly. Was 'coldly' right? It was probably close enough. 'Stated' was good, but the coldness didn't quite sit right. Maybe she should have gone for 'imperiously', or _crap people are talking pay attention_.

"It's dangerous," said Kirche. "I would rather do it myself than have Louise do it."

Oh, right. Apparently she was being asked to cast a spell. Well, Kirche was right that it would be dangerous. Not that that made her less of a cow. If a small bit of verbal lambasting could get Louise out of blowing up the classroom, though, it was probably worth it.

"Dangerous?" The stout woman at the front of the classroom asked curiously. "What's so dangerous about alchemy?" Oh hell, there was no good answer to that. Quickly glancing around the room, Louise saw vindictive grins, petty mouths everywhere readying themselves to expound on her inadequacy. Oh, there would be long minutes of it, that was certain now. Public humiliation, derogatory nicknames… and that insufferable grin of Kirche's.

"I'll do it!" Louise shouted. Wait, no. No shouting. Shouting painted her as overly desperate in that situation. She took a breath. "I'll do it," she said coldly. No, that wasn't right either. She really needed to work on her intonations, but that could wait because _why did she volunteer oh crap oh crap that's not right at all-_

But another quick glance showed that it had taken. The teacher was looking at her expectantly, and most of the other students were already crouched behind the makeshift barricades of their desks.

Well, she could hardly back out now. _Why_ had she done this? It had purchased her a few seconds of dignity, at least.

Louise slowly walked up to the front of the room, savoring those seconds. She would need them.

o—o—o—o

Not too far from the classroom, a middle-aged fire mage who could charitably be described as "balding" sat down at his desk with a sigh of relief. Starting a new term was never easy, but everything was in order now, and the man could enjoy a brief respite.

 _These really are great times we live in,_ he reflected as he poured himself a small drink. _That we live in a time stable enough to teach students to their full potential is a wonderful thing. Only a decade ago, our students might have been up for the draft._ He raised his glass. _Here's to a peaceful year._

The familiar sound of an explosion rocked through Professor Colbert's office. He stared at the glass a moment longer, then dumped its contents into a nearby houseplant.

o—o—o—o—o—o—o

 _It's okay._

Louise le Blanc de la Valliere. Louise. Daughter of Karin the Heavy Wind, among the most powerful, wealthy, feared, talented… among the _foremost_ heroes of the land, a person whose very name the forces of evil feared to speak.

Louise the Zero.

 _It's okay._

Louise, who had no magical capacity whatsoever. Who hadn't cast a single spell successfully. The laughingstock of her year. Who, if she wasn't mistaken, was the target of mockery from the unimportant people she was passing by. Kirche Zerbst. Montmorency Montmorency. They still had better prospects than her.

 _It's okay._

Louise, whose destructive ineptitude was taken so much for granted that the destruction of the classroom had been attributed to the teacher. She shouldn't have made her attempt a spell in front of the class. She was advised against it by the students. She shouldn't have expected anything good to come out of Louise.

 _It's okay._

Louise, who would be kicked out of Tristain Academy of Magic tomorrow.

 _You'll do great. You've practiced so much. Every movement, every word of your incantation. This spell isn't even associated with an element. Every single mage in Halkeginia has cast it. There is no possible way you can fail._

Louise was by no means in the Academy by merit. She had gotten in through family influence. Nobody even bothered to hide it. She would have failed out long ago, save that her tireless study had given her a better grasp of the theory of magic than anybody. As is, she performed remarkably on written exams and homework, and had barely scraped by with acceptable grades.

Theory wouldn't be enough tomorrow. The familiar summoning spell was a determinant of a noble's entire future, a powerful indicator of their talent, their character, even their destiny. If she couldn't manage _anything_ …

"I wonder what kind of a familiar spirit you will summon."

" _I'll summon a sacred, beautiful and strong familiar that will be unmatched by everyone else's familiar spirits combined,_ " Louise replied as she walked away.

She hadn't meant to say that out loud, and didn't stop to look back at the cows' faces, but the heavy sound of silence told her she had absolutely nailed that conversation.

o—o—o—o—o—o—o

Louise had absolutely flubbed that conversation.

"Today is the day of your Summoning."

It was here. It was here and it was so much worse than it could have been, word had spread and people were watching her _curiously_ now. Why did she brag? Why could she never keep her Brimir-damned mouth shut?

"This is the first exam of your second year, as well as the sacred day of your first…"

The professor's voice droned over the muttering of the crowd. All the students had some level of reasonable apprehension. It just so happened that reasonable apprehension currently comprised about 85% of Louise's body by mass.

 _There's no room for something petty like fear to get in the way,_ she thought. _This is important. Go over the ritual again._

Yes. That was good. Practice. The words ran through her mind, almost a catechism at this point. _My servant that exists somewhere in the universe…_ as Louise continued mentally reciting her ritual, her heart calmed, and her breathing deepened. She was ready. She was ready. She would show them. She would do this. She was _ready_.

"I can hardly wait to see how _great_ a familiar spirit you will summon," said a voice like embers down Louise's neck.

"Kirche, if your face is still there when I turn around, I'm going to make it forget it ever had a mouth."

o—o—o—o—o—o—o

This was it.

 _No thoughts. Just the ritual._

"My servant that exists somewhere in the universe!"

Surprised muttering. Stares. All unimportant.

 _…Really, it doesn't matter what kind._

"Oh sacred, beautiful and strong familiar spirit!"

It was just her and the spell. Louise… and her familiar.

 _A mighty beast… A shining steed… A cunning hunter…_

"Here I desire and plead from my heart!"

It was the beginning.

 _Strength doesn't matter. You only need to be there. That's all it takes._

"Answer my call!"

o—o—o—o

Qilavar Lelavana, or Quill as he was more commonly known, was a bit of an odd case.

Quill was strong. Not as strong as a typical two-hander, but stronger than average, at least, with 14 strength. He was also strong in the sense of one's capacity to kill things. Not too much so, as then his hit dice would exceed the limit of the summoning's power, but at fifth level, he would be the most powerful Paladin in any small town. The most powerful individual with Paladin levels, anyways. Well, one Paladin level. A variant Paladin level, of chaotic good rather than of lawful good. Some might say that Quill was not the most Paladinly figure. Quill might reply to them that Paladinhood is in the heart, and that he's done an upstanding job of keeping his own code of conduct, and no, he's not just chaotic for the mechanical benefits, and no, a chaotic good Paladin is not just a lawful good Paladin with looser restrictions, and yes, he's a real Paladin, shut up. In fact, Quill had said these exact words so many times he had started to consider writing a sonnet, lay, or similar craft of wordsmithing to get the point across in a more distinctive manner.

Quill was sacred, ostensibly. He had levels in a divine spellcasting class. One level. Which was not enough to cast divine spells, or give him a noticeable aura of good. Nor did he have sufficient wisdom to cast divine spells, if he were to take enough Paladin levels to gain access to them. Regardless of what he said, he really wasn't much of a Paladin. Having traded _Detect Evil_ for _Inspire Courage_ once per day and perform as a class skill, and having a feat allowing him to trade Smite Evil for _Inspire Courage_ once more per day, Quill could be said to be more of a Bard than a Paladin. Bards, of course, would disdain this idea, owing to his lack of arcane spells, skill points, bardic knowledge, and almost every factor that generally defines a bard. Sadly, the Bard class has a rather uninspiring public image, and despite producing many of history's great warrior kings, spymasters, authors, artisans, and just about everything imaginable on Toril, its members often have trouble being taken seriously. Thus Quill was a Bard to his friends and acquaintances, no matter how much he insisted otherwise.

Quill was beautiful, to the extent that 14 charisma permits. The term was certainly more accurate than "handsome," as although he would somewhat rather it not so, his figure was feminine even by half-elf standards. Sometimes, while in particularly difficult situations, Quill had considered it a mistake to have diverted points from his physical ability scores to Charisma, in light of his nature as a two-handing frontliner with no class features dependent on it. Sometimes, when feeling particularly conflicted about his character creation choices, Quill would spend hours awake in front of a mirror practicing quips and flourishes. That night would have been particularly embarrassing to explain to the party, if not for two of them being medically dispossessed of any sense of humor and the lot of them being medically gits. It was rather embarrassing in any case.

And while Quill was perhaps not the most strictly appropriate candidate for Louise's summons, he was graced with the unusual distinctions of being a Player Character and of having no urgent tasks. Quill had just participated in the completion of a rather significant quest arc, in which his party had saved a barony of moderate size and been rewarded accordingly – at the moment, it seemed unclear to him how he had ever lived without extradimensional storage – and he had a decent charisma and no need to rest and regain spells, which helped propagate further negotiations with the Baron's daughter. As well as his other daughter. And his son. Quill wasn't much of a roleplayer most of the time, but being a paragon of Chaotic Good was exceptionally fun at times. In any case, as he found himself strolling through a grassy courtyard in the small hours of the morning, enjoying life and wanting for a plot hook, the Delimiting Metanarrative decided in its infinite scope that a glowing green portal should open directly before the startled young half-elf.

Quill blinked. There was a portal.

Well, he didn't have spellcraft ranks to positively identify it as a portal, but what else could it be? Nobody would just put down a big glowing damage effect and expect him to walk into it. It could be a portal to an ambush, or the Elemental Plane of Fire. Wherever it went, his party wasn't with him.

Then again, Quill's party was comprised of enough spellcasting power to break the Tomb of Horrors, and contained enough melee power to… well, it contained a cleric and a druid. They would be fine without him, and this was _glowing_. He could hardly just ignore it.

"When opportunity knocks," Quill muttered with a shrug.

So it was that less than six seconds after the portal to another world opened, Quill the Warblade leaped into it headfirst, never to be seen again.

o—o—o—o—o—o—o

Hello! I've been putting this off for some time now. Get ready, because this is my first story and I expect it to be entirely terrible. I'd like to promise that the quality will improve in future chapters, but I've already written a few of those and that doesn't really seem to be happening. You can at least expect more action later on.

As a crossover between Familiar of Zero and Dungeons and Dragons, this story is primarily aimed at fans of both, but I expect you'll find it fairly enjoyable if you're only familiar with one of the two. If you don't know anything about either... probably don't bother reading this story. Sir Poley's is better anyways.

Speaking of which, make sure that you check out Sir Poley's story, Harry Potter and the Natural 20, also on fanfiction dot net! It is a glorious pillar of fiction, of which i can but hope to trace the shadow.

This story attempts to follow the Rules As Written of D&D 3.5 Edition to the best extent I can manage. This may not always succeed. Please let me know if I mess up. I offer no guarantees that any dice will be rolled legitimately. Quill is ostensibly from Faerûn, because he has a deity and alternative class feature from that setting... but I know very little about Faerûn, so I expect to mess up the fluff elements there constantly. Feel free to also correct me on that if you like. Really, just letting me know whenever I do something stupid would be appreciated. That is to say, please review.

Quill's current character sheet is available at [slash] #id=1135213 (EDIT: That's a myth-weavers sheet, ff dislikes urls and I don't really know how to deal with that). His stats were generated using a 28 point buy, with rolled HP and approximately the right Wealth By Level.


	2. Chapter 2

Quill was transported directly into an explosion.

He winced as his reflex save failed, and he took 4 damage directly to the face. On the one hand, he had just suffered an attack that could have mortally wounded most commoners. On the other, commoners die in a stiff breeze, and this made for a hell of an entrance. Quill resolved to see if he could pick up a scroll or two of this exploding portal spell for Renard at some point. Right now, it was more important to look cool. As the smoke was clearing, he did just that, assuming a dashing smile and triumphant pose which would allow his cloak to flutter in the wind.

He seemed to be in a grassy and well-lit courtyard. It was midday, suggesting he'd moved across the entire continent, or further (geography was never his strong suit). Fortunately, his current company seemed to be human. He looked across a gaggle of adolescents in mage's robes (Students? Cultists? Cultists generally wore less white and worked in the dark, but you can't really rule anything out…), quickly zeroing in on the most important of them. A tanned redheaded girl with generous assets and a fiery lizard. An effeminate blond man holding a rose like a weapon. A blue-haired girl with a dragon at her side, and seemingly the only one who was not currently staring at Quill. (Quill was suddenly very aware of how stupid his pose looked, and considered trying either to tone it down or emphasize it for parody. He decided that unless provoked by the situation, doing either would draw too much attention.)

And of course, there was the girl in front of him. A slight figure, a shocked expression, hair so pink the fey would envy it, and a wand held out toward him. He had his summoner – even if, by the look of it, she wasn't necessarily expecting him.

Quill slipped into an easy half-bow. "Well met," he said. "Might I have the name of the one who called me here?" The question seemed to snap the girl out of her thoughts.

"I'm… I'm Louise. Louise de la Valliere," said Louise de la Valliere. "You're a human."

"Yep!" Quill replied cheerfully. "Qilavar Lelavana, but you can call me Quill. You're a human as well, if I'm not mistaken?"

"Yes," she said, seeming a little dazed, or at least dazzled. "I'm sorry, can you speak Tristainian? My Albionese is a bit rusty."

"I'm afraid I don't know either of those languages," said Quill in what happened to be perfect Albionese. _Crap, I'm_ not _human, am I? I mean I… Maybe half-elves have the human subtype? I should really know this._ "Would you happen to prefer Elven, maybe, or Draconic?"

"Draconic? Wait, Elven? Wait, _Draconic?_ I mean, you don't… that is… where are you _from_?"

"Faerûn, and I'm afraid I can't give you much more in the way of specifics than that." _I should check to see if I count as human at some point, but it would be embarrassing to correct myself now._ "You know us adventurers, can't seem to stay in one place for more than a week."

"I really don't," said Louise bemusedly. _What is going on? I was… the ritual… is_ he _my familiar? Is that even possible?_

Louise gave the strange youth an appraising look. He didn't cut a very impressive figure. His tone suggested confidence, but his body was, well… scrawny. He stood barely taller than Louise, and looked thin enough that she could lift him over her head. His cheerful expression and youthful features clashed with the presence of more healed-over scars on his face than one would expect from a war veteran. His garb was a strange mismatch, a fancy wide-brimmed silk hat and a spiky, impractical- and expensive-looking armor shirt worn with a patched and dusty cloak and shoddy woolen breeches. His boots, strangely, didn't seem to have a speck of dirt on them. He seemed to have a hooked polearm of some sort, a longbow (strung, in disregard for proper maintenance), _and_ a worn leather haversack slung over his back, in a way that would make it quite impossible for him to access at least one of his weapons, though from her current angle Louise could not tell which. Too wealthy to be a commoner, but with no effort to look like proper nobility. Was he a bounty hunter, possibly a disgraced noble of some sort? He described himself as an "adventurer," which would imply the former…

"Excuse me," Louise said cautiously. "But what is your class? I mean, are you an aristocrat?"

"I'm certainly not!" said Quill, sounding somehow proud of it. "I'm a Paladin and a Warblade."

Louise, and some of the other students who could understand Albionese, gasped. The term "war blade" was probably just some Albionese nonsense title (or, she reminded herself, an artifact of her poor grasp of the language), but a _Paladin_ – a knight of the Church? To have reached such status from being a mere commoner, and at such a young age… no wonder he was proud. It would explain his aesthetic as well; the worn clothes could be a deliberate choice to showcase humility and ascetic virtue. "A Paladin? Really?"

"Well, of a sort," he said rather sheepishly. "I'm not, uh… a very high level Paladin." That made sense, though it was still an impressive accomplishment. It raised a rather important question, though, now that she considered it: could he become her familiar given his existing ties to the church? And for that matter, would he? She looked to Professor Colbert for guidance.

The aging magus stepped forward and cleared his throat softly. "I'm sorry about any inconvenience we might have caused you. You're probably wondering why you're here right now."

"It was no trouble at all," he replied evenly. "And yes, the thought had crossed my mind."

"This is the Tristain Academy of magic," Colbert explained. "Our students have been summoning their familiars…" Quill nodded. "And Louise seems to have summoned you."

"Instead of a familiar?" Quill asked, frowning. "I've never heard of that happening before."

" _As_ a familiar, near as we can tell," Colbert said. "And no, it's completely unheard of as far as I know."

"Odd," said Quill. "I suppose she'll have to try again. I'm sorry for the inconvenience," he added in recollection of the man's earlier statement.

"Not at all. But I'm afraid she cannot summon another familiar. A mage can only summon one."

"But… I'm not her familiar. I can't be a familiar," Quill said. "I have a class." Louise deflated slightly. Of course his existing life as a Paladin would take precedence over being a servant to her. She was silly to even hope otherwise. "Besides, I think I would know if I was. Familiars have an empathic link and stuff, right?"

 _Of course. He's not a Noble, so he wouldn't know._ "The ritual isn't done yet," Louise interjected. She then withered back under his curious stare. "There's… there's another part," she muttered, face almost as pink as her hair.

"Really. Didn't know. Well, go ahead then."

Louise looked up, hardly daring to believe. "What? Are… are you sure?"

"Yeah," Quill said with a shrug. "No harm in trying. I would be fine with being a familiar, to be honest. I'm accustomed to being beholden to spellcasters anyways."

"This is not a decision to be taken lightly," Colbert warned. "If the ritual succeeds, you will be bound for life."

"Life is brief," Quill responded. "Hit me up."

Louise hesitated. This part would be much easier if she had summoned some beast. This guy was… fairly good-looking, she supposed… and if she… but she was engaged to…

But once again, she was too far in to go back.

Louise stepped up to the strange warrior she had summoned, her heart beating like a drum –

"So do I need to kneel, or –"

And quickly kissed him on the lips.

She stepped back just as rapidly. _Oh founder, that was so embarrassing, everyone was watching, what will he think now?_ She desperately peered at his face, but it was unreadable.

 _-Then how did Renard do that with a raven?_ Quill's pondering was interrupted as he noticed a burning sensation in his hand. Not that it literally felt like it was on fire – Quill had been on fire a fair number of times, and it wasn't the worst thing ever at only 1d6 damage a round. While Quill wasn't actually losing hit points at the moment, this was quite possibly the worst pain he had ever felt in his life.

"Huh."

Quill could have, of course, fallen to the ground writhing, or some such display, but there were important things to consider right now. As glowing runes inscribed themselves on his hand, he felt a very tangible power flowing into him. His skin grew tougher, rendering him slightly more resilient to blows. His reflexes quickened, heightening his reactions to a level near automaticity. Through a newly forged empathic link, he could feel Louise's frayed nerves and ecstatic hope.

How was this possible? Did she take a feat specifically to –

Then an idea hit Quill, and as he looked around the courtyard, he noticed for the first time the kinds of creatures present. A giant (Medium-sized) mole, a salamander of similar proportion, was that a _juvenile blue dragon?_ Quill cursed his poor perception skills, feeling like an idiot. Clearly, these weren't ordinary Wizards or Sorcererers, and they didn't have ordinary familiars. They probably had some sort of obscure third-party casting class which made more powerful creatures (and, presumably due to a poorly written rule, creatures with class levels) available as familiars.

A manic grin spread across Quill's face. _If I can still gain experience normally,_ he thought – _and it's entirely possible there would be no clause to preclude that from happening – I may have just stumbled into a significant benefits package which doesn't require the use of any character resources._ The possible benefits of being somebody else's class feature began to race through his mind. He no longer counted toward his party's challenge rating… well, if he was still gaining XP normally, that wouldn't affect how it was earned or divided, and the Damn Monsters tended to provide a challenge just powerful enough regardless of how much the party optimized. Ah well. The ability to share in a caster's personal buffs and deliver touch spells was more than most full-BAB classes could dream of anyways. This was never meant to happen, and it was amazing.

Louise was feeling better than she had in years. _Successful spells count: one,_ she thought smugly. In fact, not only had she summoned a familiar, it was an overwhelmingly good one. The intelligence of a familiar was usually enhanced somewhat from that of an animal of its type, but that was only to the extent of understanding simple orders and social customs. The possible benefits of a human familiar began to race through her mind. She could bring him places where servants weren't normally allowed, would never need to show up to a dance without a partner… Not that she would be lacking in interested parties for that, if the excited whispers and speculation running through the students now were any indication. Nobody had ever expected this to happen, and it was amazing.

"That was certainly something," said Mr. Colbert, staring at the newly branded runes on Quill's hand. "Hearty congratulations on your summoning, Miss Valliere. And Mister… Levanna, was it?"

"Lelavana," he corrected. "But you can just call me Quill."

"Well, Quill, welcome to Tristain Academy of Magic. Class is dismissed for today; I recommend you all spend the time off getting to know your familiars better."

As Louise prepared herself for the oncoming rush of questioning students, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned and jumped as she saw Quill, who had at some point moved up next to her.

"Hey, Louise?" he said. "I just wanted to say how unbelievably cool this is, and to thank you for this opportunity."

"R-really?"

"There's nowhere I'd rather be right now," he said earnestly. "Paladin's honor."

Louise could somehow feel a sense of his sincerity through the familiar bond, and she knew in that moment that he was, for whatever reason, genuinely thrilled about this. Her grin widened. This was, quite literally, the best possible result of the ritual. From this point forward, she couldn't imagine a single thing going wrong.

o—o—o—o—o—o—o

Author's note: Ugh. Obligatory segments. I swear things start to get humorous around Chapter 4, I'll try to get there as quickly as possible.

FF seems to do weird things to URLs, so here's another attempt: Quill's character sheet can be found at myth-weavers*com/sheet*html#id=1135213 (replace asterisks with dots).


	3. Chapter 3

In the confused mess of rapid-fire questions that followed, the students showed more interest in Quill's campaign setting than anybody he had ever known living there.

Quill was from a place called Faerûn.

Faerûn was not located in Albion.

Faerûn was, in fact, an entirely separate continent from Halkeginia, full of dangerous ruins and deadly monsters.

Albionese was a common language, though not the only one spoken, throughout the entire continent.

While the clergy had a great deal of power and influence in Faerûn, there were frequent power struggles between various sects, and even powerful Nobles not affiliated with any of them.

Faerûn was not united under a single leader or government.

Many intelligent non-human races occupied Faerûn, including elves and stranger creatures.

There was a long-standing peace between humans and elves in Faerûn.

Almost everyone in Faerûn, including intelligent demihumans, was literate. Even commoners were literate by default – Quill gave an offhand literacy estimate for the population of 99.8%.

Around this point, Louise managed to grab Quill by the ear and start pulling him away from the crowd. Somewhat belatedly, he realized that his feelings of anger were in fact _not_ frustration at having to answer so many obvious questions, but in fact originated from his empathic bond.

"Hey Louise, is something –"

"Shut up," she said through clenched teeth. "Or I'll… I'll… just stop talking."

Quill obliged, and not a word was exchanged as Louise half-led, half-dragged him into the academy and up the stairs to the student dorms.

Louise threw open the door to her room and shoved Quill inside. Entering after him, she slammed the door and stood before him. There was another moment of silence.

To say that Louise was upset would be an understatement. Her pupils had shrunken until they were barely visible. Her teeth were bared in a feral snarl, seemingly sharpened to points by her anger. Her hair moved without any apparent impetus, lifting and shaking as though it was boiling. _Fear, embarrassment, betrayal,_ Quill felt through the empathic link. He hedged that if he had a sufficient modifier to Sense Motive to be physically capable of interpreting a social situation, it would probably be telling him he had done something very wrong.

"So –" he tried.

" _What was that?_ " Louise shrieked. Quill winced. Louise felt a sense of surprise and confusion from him, and stopped short of shouting again. She closed her eyes, took a deep, shaky breath, and forced herself to speak calmly.

"Would you care to tell me," Louise said in a strained voice, "why you just tried to tell everyone that Albion is keeping some sort of distant supercolony secret from the world?"

"I didn't say that."

"You just about did," Louise said. "An entire _continent_ that speaks Albionese, is that it? Where commoners are taught reading and writing, to the person? Where humans and elves and _gnomes_ all live in harmony? And they somehow managed to keep this fantasy land secret from the entire Halkeginian populace?"

"Faerûn isn't a secret," Quill protested. "It doesn't make the slightest efforts to be secret. Even if it did, like you said, the concept is ludicrous."

"Then _why_ has nobody heard of it? If it existed like you said, it would be on every map of the world out there!"

"It's probably in another world then," Quill said with a shrug.

"Another world," Louise said flatly. That was just… that was…

"It's not as if there's no precedent for it," he said. "Many of the familiar options from the improved list are outsiders and elementals."

Could the idea be plausible? After all, while the means of performing the summoning ritual were well recorded, almost nothing was known about how it actually worked. There had been many attempts over centuries of magical research to measure the magical energies involved in it, and all of them had failed. Furthermore, there weren't any confirmed incidents of creatures disappearing as a result of being summoned as familiars, and some of them were types not seen anywhere in Halkeginia. If the ritual could draw on other worlds, then…

"Why do you speak Albionese then?" Louise asked, now significantly calmer.

"It's just referred to as Common where I'm from," Quill replied. "Since just about every intelligent race speaks it. There are really people here who can't?"

"Most of this country's population," Louise answered distractedly. "But then how…"

"And I've never heard of a place called Albion in my life."

Louise sat down heavily on her bed, face in her hands. "Well, regardless of whether I believe you, everyone else definitely thinks you're crazy now. Are you really a Paladin where you come from?"

"Yes. Level one Paladin of Milil, and level four Warblade."

"Paladin of what?"

"Milil. Uh, Faerûn's patron deity of Bards and of the arts."

"You don't worship God and the founder Brimir?" Louise said, whipping her head around in shock.

"I do worship a god," said Quill cheerily. "Never heard of Brimir, though. What's he a god of?"

"Everything. T-that is to say, God is. Brimir isn't a god, He's the agent of God."

"A god of everything, huh? Sounds a tad boring," Quill said, leaning back against the wall and yawning. "He a typical choice for humans here, then?"

"Not just that," Louise muttered. "He's the _only_ true god. Heretics can be legally subject to exile, or worse!" _Oh Founder, how can this be happening, I have literally the worst luck…_

Quill frowned. "What? Why? Is your government evil?"

"No! No, it's not evil."

"Why does it keep people from worshipping whoever they want then? That sounds fairly evil to me. Heck, even the drow are generally somewhat lenient with temples of other faiths on their land."

"Drow?"

"Uh, dark elves. Like elves, but evil, and they live underground."

Louise filed the moderately horrific prospect of subterranean "dark elves" away for later. "God is the only true god," she repeated. "Worship of false gods is an insult to Him."

"Okay, I'm going to need you to explain that one to me. Where I come from, our gods vary in power, motivations, and morality, but we don't have a 'true-false' dichotomy. What exactly do you mean by it? Did the other gods betray a pact of law at some point, while only this one remained faithful to it?"

"It means exactly what it sounds like! They aren't real! There are no other gods. God is the god of everything!" Louise considered Quill's affiliation for a moment. "Well, in this world, at least."

Quill thought about this. "Other gods don't exist," he said eventually, "but people still worship them?"

"Yes," said Louise, relieved by Quill's tone of voice in saying that.

"That's ridiculous. What reason could they possibly have to do that?"

"Oh, there are all sorts of arguments they use to claim their gods are real," said Louise. Now this was more familiar territory. "Often, corrupt officials will –"

"Hold on, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but are you saying there's actual _contention_ over whether these gods exist?"

"…Yes," Louise replied cautiously. "Although not very logically sound contentions –"

"Then why in the _hells_ do they not just get a high-level cleric to cast _Commune_ and _check?_ "

Louise blinked.

"You… your world has spells which can speak to your gods directly?"

"It's a fifth level cleric spell. So is _Planeshift_ , for that matter. Just go visit them." Quill's face lit up like a factotum's at the end of an encounter. "Oh! That's why your world's so isolated, isn't it? Your world is like Eberron, NPCs don't _reach_ level nine! This explains everything!" Louise, having understood almost nothing Quill just said, strongly disagreed with this sentiment. "Except for the whole dragon as a familiar thing. I guess if the standard casters here are using whatever nonstandard class, it could explain the lack of powerful casters – it sacrifices spell levels for familiar progression, and maybe other things, or maybe it just has a different spell list, oh Milil, I have so many questions."

"Same here," Louise said faintly.

The boy was clearly deranged. He kept babbling nonsense, and these crazy ideas about other worlds… and yet, Louise wanted to believe him. Maybe it stemmed from a desperate hope that her familiar wasn't broken, or perhaps some mad desire for something more than her world had offered her. He had remained mostly calm and genuinely seemed to want to take in information, which didn't seem like the way a madman would act… If a person really came from another world, would he be acting this way? Louise needed a way to test his story.

"Um, so… It's not that I don't believe you," Louise lied. "This is just, uh, a lot to take in. Can you actually prove you're from another world? Like, do you have any items that don't exist here?"

"Maybe," said Quill. He considered for a moment. "A few of my items are enchanted with various spells, so I guess I could go through those." He took off his hat and passed it to Louise, revealing a mess of black hair and sharp, pointed ears. Louise almost gasped. _That looks awful! So many tangles, hasn't he ever heard of a comb?_

"This is a _hat of disguise_ ," Quill explained. "It changes the user's appearance, and it's based off the spell _Disguise Self_. It's a first level spell on a whole bunch of spell lists, so you probably have it, but, you know…"

"I've heard of a mirror that does that," Louise said absently. Something seemed _wrong,_ and she wasn't sure what. "It's essentially a really expensive parlor trick, but in a portable form like this that's quite…." She trailed off as she realized what the issue was.

"So I'm sorry if this is a world difference thing," she said, voice carefully neutral, "but your ears look rather pointed, and in this world that's…"

"Oh yeah, that's right," said Quill. "I'm a half-elf."

Louise surreptitiously made sure her wand was in an easily accessible position as she spoke. "And why did you not mention this earlier?"

Quill shrugged. "I forgot." He noticed the empathic link flaring up again, and peered worriedly at Louise. "Is that a problem? Sorry, I figured I was human enough for all intents."

"Not really," she said, her voice somewhat tighter now. "And just to be sure, you said earlier that humans and elves are at peace in your world?"

"Yeah, they… oh. Oh." Quill flattened somewhat. "I take it elves are evil in this world, then?"

"Yes," Louise said, sighing as she relaxed. She wasn't in danger from him, that much was clear. The government, on the other hand, might not be as understanding. It was shocking how quickly her highly presentable familiar was becoming a dangerous piece of contraband. "You'll need to hide the ears."

"Oh, that's no problem." Quill motioned for the hat, and on donning it, lifted the brim to show that his ears no longer had points. "See? Disguise magic! Honestly, this has been useful to me in so many situations, you wouldn't believe."

"The hat is wide enough to hide the ears anyways, but I guess the magic doesn't hurt. How do you _forget_ your own species?"

"It just doesn't come up very often!" Quill said defensively. "It's not a very big deal where I'm from!"

Louise sighed again. Now that she thought about it, it was probably a good thing he hadn't blurted out that he was half Elf in the middle of a crowd. "Sure. Fine. Do you have any other magic items?"

He reached into his pack and pulled out a marble-sized orb which seemed to be on fire. It didn't seem to burn his hand, and Louise couldn't feel any heat from it. He then held it up and opened his hand, at which point it began to fly around his head.

"I've never heard of anything like that," Louise conceded. "What does it do?"

"Sheds light."

"That's it?"

"Well, it lasts forever, and doesn't use up a hand."

Well that could possibly be made with fire magic, and wind for the flight… okay, no. Nobody would possibly use an enchanted item for something as frivolous as a hands-free light source. You can literally just hang a lantern on your belt. Now even the rational part of Louise's mind was starting to wonder if he might really be from another world.

"How many magic items do you have, anyways? Are they not very expensive in your world?"

"None of the ones I have, although they get a lot worse," Quill responded, snagging the orb and stowing it in his pack. "I also have Steadfast Boots, which treat me as readied against any charge attacks, a Crystal of Return in the guisarme, which lets me draw it faster…" He demonstrated. The polearm seemed to teleport into his hands, its blade mere inches away from Louise's face.

"Hey, watch it!" she protested, flinching back.

"Uh, sorry," he said, somehow sheathing it without trouble despite the fact it took up a significant portion of the room. Which made it somewhat strange, she realized, that he had been wearing it carelessly on his back the entire time, without incident. _How did he even get through the door?_ She dismissed these thoughts for later.

"I also have a wand of _cure light wounds_ , and… oh, the pack! Right, this is a Heward's Handy Haversack. Larger on the inside."

"I'm sorry, did you say you have a wand?" A thought suddenly struck Louise. "Wait, you said you weren't an aristocrat, but you never said you couldn't do magic. In your world –"

"Wait, Aristocrats do magic in your world?"

"Y-yes," said Louise. If this implied what she thought it implied, she wasn't entirely sure she had the mental processing capacity left to comprehend it. "Then can you –"

"Nope," Quill said. Well, it had been a nice thought. "Except using wands."

"What do you mean _except using wands_?"

"Are wands not a thing here?" Quill asked. "This is a really strange campaign setting. I can cast _cure light wounds,_ but only because I have this wand of _cure light wounds._ If I had a wand of another Paladin spell, I could cast that one too. Until I ran out of charges, at least. Each wand has limited uses."

Louise considered this. "I'm assuming from the name that's a minor healing spell, then… How many 'charges' does it have left?"

"Thirty-six."

So he was capable of casting spells. One spell. A limited number of times. It was still much, much better than nothing. "Wands work a little bit differently here. You can cast from them an unlimited number of times, but they don't have any inherent power – it's all in the technique and power of the mage using them."

"Sounds more like a focus to me," said Quill.

"Yes, that's a pretty accurate term for it. Do your world's mages have similar things?"

"Yeah. They're called focuses."

"Okay."

"Right."

"Good."

There was a moment of awkward silence.

"So… you said you have questions?" Louise asked. "You've certainly earned some."

"Oh yeah, um, now that I think about it, I mostly just need a debrief on the campaign setting," Quill responded. "Do you have any notes that I can look at?"

"I have notes from my classes, but I'm not a very high level student yet, so you'll probably need more details than you can get from those." Louise had been able to largely ignore Quill's strange terminology, as most of it had been either intuitive or irrelevant to their conversation, but this phrase demanded explanation. "What exactly do you mean by 'campaign setting'? Are you saying you want to know more about this world?"

"Pretty much. And anything you have should be good enough."

"Well… my notes are in Tristainian," Louise said. "Which you can't read. And in any case, if you're going to live in this world without embarrassing us, you're going to need a lot more than whatever you can understand from my single year of studying magical theory." Not to mention her note-taking style tended to ramble a bit and was full of her scribbled-out conjectures, making it somewhat unfriendly to outside eyes. "They keep a few Albionese books in the library, though you'll have to specifically request them from the librarian. Those should give you a good basis until you can learn our language. Speaking of which, we might want to see about getting you a tutor for Tristainian."

"Sounds expensive and unnecessary. I figured I'd just pick it up with experience." Quill walked over to the door. It was almost startling the way he seemed to accelerate to a measured pace almost instantaneously, without so much as shifting from his long-held standing position beforehand. "And in any case, figuring out this world seems a more pressing concern." Quill opened the door with some difficulty, as its frame seemed to have been warped somewhat when it was slammed. "Do you think you can lead me to this library?"

"Sure," said Louise, following him out. "Now remember, you can't tell anybody that you –"

"Hello there, sir authority figure!" Quill loudly interrupted her. "Is there anything we can do to help you?"

Professor Colbert was standing right there in the corridor. Looking directly at Louise.

"Er, it's Professor Colbert," he said with a furrowed brow. "And yes, actually. Headmaster Osmond wishes to speak with Miss Valliere. What's that you were saying to your familiar?"

"Um, well – you see –" Louise fumbled desperately for an answer, her face heating up. _Oh founder why, I'm going to be banished and killed and disgraced and –_

"I have a bit of a medical problem," Quill lied smoothly. "It would be kind of embarrassing if word got out."

"I see," Colbert said. "Will you need any particular accommodations from the Academy?"

"No, not at all," Quill said. "Although I might sometimes need to leave public areas quickly and without warning," he added on sudden inspiration. "It flares up unpredictably, and taking care of it is kind of awkward."

"Y-yes!" Louise piped in, face still flush with embarrassment. "That! Is the case! S-so if you could be sure not to tell anybody about that, and –"

"Of course," Colbert assured her. "I have complete respect for his privacy. Now, are you currently available to see –"

"Headmaster Osmond! Yes, of course I am! Let's go see him right now!" Louise realized that she was talking in a suspiciously anxious manner. "I mean…" She looked over at Quill. "Did he want to see Quill as well?"

"He only said he wanted to speak to you," Colbert replied, then frowned. "Though as the familiar is considered an extension of the self, it may be permissible for him to be included in that."

"I'd probably just make stupid comments," Quill said. "And this sounds like a person you might not want to look like an idiot in front of. Fill me in on anything important, though. Which way is it to the library?"

"Down the stairs two flights, in the passage on your left, and through the third door on your left," Louise answered.

"See you in a bit, then." Quill put a hand up to his hat to doff it - _wait, ears_ \- put a hand up to his hat to tilt it forward. "Don't get in too much trouble."

"Same to you," Louise said. There wasn't a trace of humor in the statement.

o—o—o—o—o—o—o

Author's note: Moradin's beard, it is really difficult to avoid discussing religion in a setting like this.


	4. Chapter 4

Less than two minutes after leaving Louise, Quill was somehow already hopelessly lost.

The survival check to not get lost had a fairly low difficulty class of 15, which was normally improbable for Quill with his negative skill modifier. He had assumed that, between the area containing much more distinctive features than a natural environment, his destination being about 100 feet from his starting point, and having been given explicit directions, there would be enough circumstance bonuses to make it a trivial endeavor.

And then he'd rolled a natural 1, so much for that.

Quill now stood before several corridors in a warmly lit lobby of moderate decadence, considering his next move. "This isn't really too large a place," he muttered. "But there are a lot of doors, and it's unclear which one goes to the library. I guess I'll just need to check all of them. Probably best to mark the ones I've done already."

As he reached into his incredibly useful haversack for a bit of chalk that he'd thrown in as an afterthought, Quill thought he heard posh snickering behind him. He hesitated and instead pulled out a small mirror. This allowed him to see whoever was behind him without making him turn and lose his cool demeanor. It also allowed him to check his hair. It looked dashingly tousled as always… maybe _too_ tousled.

The source of the snickering seemed to be flower boy from the courtyard, who now had a girl hanging off of his arm. Quill casually stowed the mirror and asked, without turning around, "you wouldn't happen to know where the library is, would you?"

"Down the hall, first door on the left," a posh and effeminate voice floated back to him. The adjectives "posh" and "effeminate" seemed to bleed into everything this man was or did. "You can't miss it. We don't have much that's written in Albionese, though."

Quill considered trying to continue the conversation without looking at his addressee. That seemed stupid, so he turned and shifted to a friendly and sincere tone and expression, trying to make it as dramatic and sudden a change as possible in an attempt to unnerve the boy. "Thanks for the advice," he replied. "But I probably wouldn't be able to read too many books in one night anyways. What's your name?"

If he was unnerved, the youth didn't show it. Rather, he took the invitation to introduce himself with bardic fervor, stepping away from his companion to make room for wider hand gestures. "I am the magnificent Guiche de Gramont!" Guiche de Gramont announced magnificently. "Famed hero and paramour, and the son and heir of General de Gramont!"

"Hm." Quill considered him for a moment. "You're a PC, right?"

"…I'm a what?" Guiche had been called a great many things, but he wasn't quite certain how to respond to this.

"A Player Character. You know, the people who kill dragons and take their treasure, cut their ways through armies of orcs, just generally run around thwarting evil and being awesome."

"Well, I… it seems you've grasped my idiom fairly well, peasant," Guiche replied, flourishing under the praise.

"Great! I am too," Quill said. "Let Louise and I know when there's heroing to be done, then. See you around."

Guiche was somewhat taken aback. "I'll… consider it?"

But Quill had already left.

o—o—o—o

"Please take a seat, Miss Valliere."

Louise did so. She stared nervously at the calm old man before her, wondering what he was thinking. Osmond was one of the oldest and wisest mages in the world, and eccentric as he was, he seemed to exude a nearly palpable aura of power – until he took an interest in some unfortunate lady's skirt, and his demeanor was yanked away like the tablecloth of a stage magician. Seated before him, Louise found herself almost wishing for such an incident, if only to disrupt the overpowering intensity of his gaze.

"You're probably wondering why I've called you here," Osmond said calmly.

"I was, Professor." Though Louise had a fairly strong prediction that it was something to do with her familiar.

Osmond unhurriedly raised his teacup to his lips. _Wait, tea?_ Louise glanced down at the desk, and saw that she had been provided a cup as well. Maybe she should drink some. It would probably be rude not to. This didn't seem like the right moment, though. Osmond lowered his cup.

"What do you think of your familiar, Louise?"

What sort of answer was Osmond looking for? Was he testing her? Was he trying to get her to admit that her familiar was an elf and a heretic? No, he couldn't possibly know that already. Aside from his mysterious ancient wizard powers, which meant he probably definitely did.

Then again, he would probably know if she wasn't being sincere.

What _did_ she think of Quill?

 _Well, he's fairly good-looking, in a rogueish sort of…_

Louise blinked, as those thoughts officially ceased to have ever occurred to her.

What _did_ she think of Quill?

The fact was that she didn't really know much about him at the moment. He had seemed relatively unfazed by what were, by any standards, very peculiar circumstances. That was probably good, as it indicated a high level of mental discipline. He seemed so far impulsive, but reasonable and, more importantly, compliant. Louise had gotten the impression that if she told him to jump off a bridge, he would do so, and probably smile the whole way down.

On the other hand, these factors also may have indicated that he was a lunatic and not suited to function in a high-level society. Where Louise had broken down at the mere suggestion that she might have been caught breaking the rules, Quill stepped in and told a boldfaced lie without so much as a catch in his voice. This wasn't exactly something she could chide him for, as she had just explicitly told him to conceal his nature, but it was somewhat troubling in its implications. How much of his cheerful demeanor had been an act? If he thought he had a good reason to, would he so easily betray the queen and the country?

Would he betray Louise?

"I think he's dangerous," Louise said honestly. "But I think that I can work with him."

Osmond raised his eyebrows as though in surprise. Blood began to rush to Louise's face as the two stared at each other. Had she failed a test of some sort? Was Osmond going to take away her familiar?

Then, wholly unexpectedly, a loud snort escaped Osmond, and he had suddenly broken down into entirely undignified cackling. Louise's face further discolored until it bore an uncanny resemblance to a tomato as she stared in mortification at the old fool, gripping his desk and howling where a paragon of wisdom had sat just a moment before.

"W-well, I mean, that is to say –"

"No, no, you don't need to correct yourself, Miss Valliere," Osmond wheezed, bringing himself under control with some difficulty. "That was a fine answer. You examined not his physical characteristics but his personality traits, and very deliberately took on responsibility for his actions as your familiar. I'm honestly quite impressed."

Louise was somewhat mollified, but now very confused. "Then why –"

"Why am I acting like a baboon at a fireworks show?" Osmond said bluntly. He lost himself to chuckling for a moment. "Louise, that question was intended as a test to determine how ready you were to have a human as a familiar. The benchmark I was using was whether you referred to the young man as 'him' or as 'it'."

"What?" Louise said crossly. _That_ was what the point of that had been? That was absurd. "Professor, what possible reason could I have to refer to him as an 'it'? He's human. Even if he wasn't, most mages use personal pronouns for their familiars, even though they can't even understand basic language. That would just be totally and pointlessly demeaning."

"And I'm glad you think that way," Osmond said, his eyes still twinkling as his breath returned to him. "But please remember that I read everything submitted to the suggestion box outside my office."

"Really?" Louise was caught off guard for a moment. She had always assumed Osmond's secretary handled that. "Wait, what does that have to do with anything?"

"The suggestions are, of course, anonymous," Osmond said as though she hadn't spoken. "But you have rather distinctive handwriting, and it becomes quite easy over time to recognize which submissions are from you. Or perhaps I should say, which submissions aren't." Louise blushed again. She needed to vent her feelings somehow, and Karin would read all of her letters to Catt, so she couldn't say anything improper in them. She had only submitted a few suggestions to the box each week though! "And your suggestions have often referred to the servants, and even to your classmates, in highly dehumanizing ways."

Oh. Louise started to see what he was getting at. "They deserved it though," Louise said matter-of-factly. Osmond burst out laughing again, and Louise now outright glared at him. "They're incredibly rude! They just completely reject the terms of civil conduct! If they don't respect me, I see no reason to do so for them." The last part was said a little pointedly, as Osmond was by that point laughing so hard he was in danger of sliding from his chair.

"A-and that justifies saying that Kirche ought to be spayed," Osmond choked out. There were snickers behind Louise, and as she turned around, she saw Colbert and Osmond's green-haired secretary both trying very hard to look interested in something other than their conversation.

Louise huffed. "Kirche is an unruly beast, and best handled by animal control, if not pest control." At this, the secretary stopped trying to control her laughter. Louise reflected on the unfairness of the world as she ensconced herself in self-righteous disdain.

o—o—o—o

Quill reflected on the unfairness of the world as he found himself lost again.

Honestly, it was rather unreasonable that he had needed to roll to navigate a single hallway. He could _see_ his destination from the starting point. He hadn't even rolled a 1 this time, though it had been a low roll.

"What kind of situations actually warrant these checks, huh?" He asked the unfamiliar architecture. "Are you going to make me roll Survival to plot out a straight line to charge on? Will I need to chart an opponent's location and velocity vector on a bloody map before I can make attacks of opportunity against them?"

Somebody behind Quill said something, and either it was unimportant enough that he physically couldn't register the meaning of it, or it was in a language he didn't speak. Under the assumption of the latter, he turned around. There was a girl there, wearing some frilly black-and-white dress that screamed "unimportant NPC" so loudly it would probably give a circumstance bonus to hide checks.

"Hello," he said. She responded with a somewhat longer statement, followed by a question. "Uh, _renthisj wux darastrix?_ " She didn't.

"And this is why you carry around a scroll of _Comprehend Languages_ , and a Wizard to use it," Quill muttered as he pulled a piece of chalk from his pack and started scrawling an image on the wall. He made a note to himself that in the future, he would need to keep the party together even for minor errands in downtime. If things kept going as they were now, he would have to roll on a random encounter table when he reached the library itself. He stepped away from the startlingly realistic chalk drawing of a book he had drawn on the wall (of course he had rolled well on _that_ untrained check) and looked at the girl. She seemed to understand, and motioned for him to follow her.

o—o—o—o

"Is there anything else you need to talk about, professor?" Louise asked loudly over her near-empty teacup. The last few minutes had been decidedly trying, as Osmond had seen fit to lighten the mood by sharing more of her _confidential_ and _anonymous_ suggestions with the room at large. This had been followed by Colbert pitching in with some of the more vitriolic banter she'd exchanged in his classroom, and even the damned secretary had shared some embarrassing family nicknames which she should not have _possibly_ known about. Louise had experienced quite enough of the world being a joke at her expense outside of mandatory meetings, thank you very much. She made a note to herself to add _publicly disgrace Osmond_ to her list of reasons for becoming the most powerful mage in the world.

"The runes," Colbert managed in a strained tone. Osmond instantly perked up, and was on his feet and brushing himself off in seconds, as though nothing had happened.

"Ah yes, the familiar runes. This is why I called you in to speak with me, actually. Louise, are you aware that the sequence of runes which appears on a familiar when bound corresponds to their role of service, and has magical effects which help them to perform that role?"

"Of course," Louise said irritably. "This might come as a surprise to you, Professor, but I did actually study for the summoning ritual."

The professor waved his hand. "Oh, Of course. I'm sorry. You also know what your familiar's runes mean, then?"

"…No," Louise admitted. Okay, maybe she had been a little bit rude, if mostly exonerated by the circumstances.

Professor Colbert was frowning at Osmond. "You were called here, Miss Valliere, because _we_ haven't been able to identify your familiar's runes. They're nonstandard, and not listed in any of the typical references." Fully exonerated then. Professor Osmond at least had the good grace to look ashamed.

"Wait. Non-standard runes? What does that mean then?"

"That's just the thing," said Osmond. "We don't know. It does, however, at least strongly imply he might not be a normal kind of familiar. And by extension of that…"

Louise's breathing quickened. "That I might not be a normal kind of mage."

"Precisely," Osmond said. "To be perfectly honest, we've suspected that you're more than simply incompetent, or a late bloomer. Your theory is excellent, and your power output rivals that of a grown mage. However, any number of things could explain your failure to cast normal spells. A bloodline curse, damaged willpower conduits, even spiritual possession at a young age.

"Not the last one," Louise remarked distantly, her mind racing. _Maybe it's a Valliere thing? Maybe I need to do blood rituals in order to use my powers?_ Louise couldn't imagine her mother doing any blood rituals. _Maybe she spills enough blood from her enemies that she doesn't need the ritual part?_ "My parents had me exorcised three times."

"Hm. I still wouldn't rule it out," Osmond said critically. "The soul has all manner of folds to it, not all of which mortals have access to. Nevertheless, it's become clearer than ever that you're not going to learn magic by the standard means."

"Then how?" Louise asked sharply.

Osmond spread his hands helplessly. "I have no idea."

Louise's train of thought crashed to a halt. "W-what? But you just did this whole thing… With the exposition… And you're so, so wise and old…"

"Old I may be," Osmond said gravely, "but in my travels of the world, magical study has, in almost every culture, been based on the same principles – essentially, to discipline the mind, and memorize the forms that invoke whatever spells your culture knows."

"Different cultures have different spells?" That sounded important enough to create a tangent from the current conversation.

"Oh yes," Osmond said. "Much of our nobility that knows doesn't assign much value to it, but the Mystic East has its own magical traditions, which differ from ours in a number of ways. They actually consider wood to be its own element."

"Does… does that work?" Louise said, shocked. "Does that imply that there are elements outside the founder's, or…"

"It hasn't been very thoroughly explored, and there are a number of explanations that have been proposed. If you want my input, the one which seems most likely is that the elements aren't actually the sole components of spellcasting, but rather are simply the ones we are most informed about. After all, the familiar summoning ritual isn't associated with any particular affinity, and while any element may be used to enchant items, the forms for doing so are the same for any mage. It may very well be that we're particularly good at spells of our elements due to the Founder's bloodline, and they have their own particular affinities from some other source, but the true range of spells is much vaster than we've tapped."

Louise considered this. "Then if I was able to do the summoning ritual, but not any other spells, it's likely my affinity, and… Are there any other non-elemental spells I might be able to learn?"

"A few, but they're very hard to get a hold of. The majority of our spells today come from times of blood feud, when houses wouldn't want to devise spells that could be easily copied by their enemies. After that, there simply wasn't enough incentive to take the risks inherent to creating new spells. Any non-elemental spells out there are either forms created by Brimir himself, which are probably locked away in royal archives and take at least a square-mage's level of power, or the primitive rituals of the pre-founder times, which are also quite hard to acquire, and tend to require a bit too much sacrifice to be palatable to the modern mage."

So she needed to become a square-class mage before she could start casting useful spells. That was something to go on, at least. Something infuriatingly difficult, of course, but it wasn't as though she wouldn't try it anyway. "Do you think the magic schools of the East would help me?"

"Not in the slightest," Osmond said. "I've actually integrated some of their better techniques into our curriculum already. Like I said, it's really all the same thing. There are more obscure things you could try, but they tend to require a lot of effort for very little result. I have a feeling you wouldn't take very well to decades of ascetic seclusion."

"I might," Louise said weakly. Actually, now that she thought about it, a solution that both adds magic and removes people might be perfect for her needs…

"It's your choice," Osmond said softly. "I'm afraid you're mostly beyond my capacity to advise at this point. However, I have a hunch that it might help you to remain at this academy."

Louise blinked. "Didn't you just say that wasn't the case?"

"You have no use for our lessons at this point," Osmond said. "But I would say that your experiences here have definitely helped to develop some aspect of yourself. The challenges you've faced, the work you've done… the friends you've made."

"The friends I've made," Louise repeated. The words took on a mocking brand of irony in her mouth.

"Surely there are some students you consider friends, Louise?" Colbert piped in. "Miss Montmorency maybe, or perhaps Miss Zerbst?"

Louise loosed a short, barking laugh. Seeing no need to follow it, she instead let it linger in the now festeringly awkward atmosphere. She'd prefer to be alone. She'd prefer to be in some dusty basement, poring over some academic text by candlelight. She'd prefer to be anywhere but this cauldron of false sympathy, in the wash of uncaring daylight and stifling air from the open windows.

"Miss Valliere –" Professor Colbert began.

"Permission to leave, Professor," Louise interrupted, ignoring him and staring at Osmond's inscrutable expression. There was another moment of silence.

"Granted," Osmond said neutrally. Then, in a softer voice, "But remember, Miss Valliere, that people are there for you when you need them."

She walked out, not stopping to respond.

o—o—o—o

The girl laid another book on the table. Quill thanked her and flipped through it briefly. More setting fluff, this time what seemed like a genealogy and history of some noble bloodline, dating back a few thousand years. No quantities, no tables, not even a unique weapon in a sidebar. It was completely useless. He sighed and went back to the book he had been reading. This one was also sorely lacking in crunch text, but it at least had descriptions of battles and could give him an idea of what he could expect from the local magical community. It seemed that a lone mage turning the tide of an entire battle was considered uncommon, and rather than binding outsiders to spam Blasphemies and Holy Words, most mages contributed to battles by showing up and personally blasting large areas of enemies, and only occasionally were even the most basic battlefield control effects used.

Aside from the usual tendency of NPCs to abhor optimization, the mages of this world seemed very limited by their spell lists, and by some sort of Elemental Affinity system, which seemed significantly more restrictive than that of the Wu Jen – or at least, these fluff descriptions made it seem highly restrictive. For all he knew, it might be only -2 caster level on an opposed element, or something equally meaningless, and these descriptions exaggerated its importance.

Which was why Quill needed a real sourcebook, rather than all of these campaign setting novels.

"Any luck?" said a voice from behind him. Louise was standing in the doorway.

"Not much," he answered, snapping the book closed. "There are a few books in Common, but none of them have very useful material."

"Albionese," Louise corrected. "You'd best get those put back, then, because dinner's about to start." She looked over at the servant girl standing in the corner, and tried to remember whether this particular servant had ever slighted her. She didn't seem familiar, and Louise held a grudge well. "Have you been helping my familiar?" Louise asked her in Tristainian.

The girl shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I haven't seen a familiar recently," she responded. "I can help you look for it, if you need."

Louise shook her head, and pointed at Quill. "He's my familiar," she clarified. "He was summoned from… a distant country, and doesn't speak Tristainian yet."

The girl's eyes widened. "A human familiar? I didn't know that was possible! That's certainly impressive. In that case, I'm happy to have helped, Miss…"

"Call me Louise," said Louise. Using her family name didn't seem appropriate to the situation somehow. "And this is Quill." Quill waved, grinning like an idiot. "What's your name?"

"Siesta," she said.

"It's nice to meet you, Siesta," Louise said. After the conversation with Osmond, it felt good to show that she could be polite when someone else reciprocated, even though this was just a commoner. "We need to go, but I'd love to talk to you later."

Siesta's face brightened, and her posture relaxed. It was a startling change; all of a sudden, she seemed like an entirely different person. "Oh, that would be lovely!" she chirped. "Perhaps we could meet for tea tomorrow? The courtyard has a nice place under the maple where the sun is just right at teatime, I'll show you where it is!"

"Um… yes, that would be great," Louise replied unsteadily. What had just happened? Louise got the feeling that she had when she committed a social faux pas that made a conversation turn sour, except that in this case the conversation had become _friendlier_ and she had no idea how to diffuse that or even whether she should. She motioned for Quill to follow her, and he stood up. "I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

"I'll see you then, Louise! Have a wonderful day!"

As Quill followed Louise out of the library, she glanced over her shoulder. Siesta was still looking at her, waving her hand and smiling that strange smile – not a derisive, threatening, even beseeching expression, but seeming somehow _cheerful_.

"You noticed that, right?" Louise said to Quill once they were out of earshot.

"Noticed what?" Quill said. "I didn't really catch much."

"The way she… changed," she said, dropping her voice. "One moment, she's all quiet and reserved, and then she's chipper and informal and…"

"Ah, right, that. You're new to this, aren't you?"

"New to what?

"You know, the whole thing," Quill answered unhelpfully. "That tends to happen when you show interest in an unimportant NPC."

"NPC?"

"Yeah, the Commoners. They don't really have much of a personality most of the time, when you're just interacting with them in passing. But if you actually care, and you ask them about themselves, I mean, did you get her name?"

"What? Um, yes. It's Siesta," Louise said. "And I asked to meet with her later."

"Ha, wow, directly setting up a recurrence like that? Yeah, I wouldn't wonder if she switched to the Elite Array on the spot there. You're a PC, Louise, and that means you're very important." Louise took note of the term. Was that a title of nobility where he was from? "The people you take notice of are going to be important too, whether you want them to or not."

"Are… are you saying that when I was nice to her, that made her more important, and being important caused her to spontaneously develop more personality and human qualities?" Louise asked, shocked.

"That's pretty accurate, yeah."

Wow. Louise had always known that Nobles were better and more valuable people than Commoners, but she had no idea that it was such a direct, causal, and manipulable relationship. The extent to which she'd seen landholders squabble over political favors and titles suddenly made much more sense to her, as did the way that the princess had always managed to be better, nicer, and prettier than her in every respect. She would need to be more careful around the servants.

…Or more open, maybe. If the attention of a Noble was so good for people, and it made them more pleasant company to Louise, then why shouldn't she provide it as much as possible?

Louise would need to test this power before she started using it recklessly. She foresaw frequent tea with Siesta.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note: Hi! Couple of things to address before this chapter. First off, sorry about the delay. I hope to update much more frequently in the future. Considering how lazy I am though, that probably won't happen unless people start yelling at me to go faster. Threats are appreciated.

Second, it's recently come to my attention that Quill's character sheet (which can be found at myth-weavers*com/sheet*html#id=1135213, after replacing the asterisks with periods) was wrong. It contained entirely the wrong set of maneuvers, in fact, from an outdated character document! This is, quite frankly, an unforgivable error on my part. The sheet has been fixed. If you care about that sort of thing, you may want to check it, as the information may or may not be relevant to this chapter.

Thank you for reading, please review if you have the time!

o—o—o—o—o—o—o

"And he said that your familiar runes aren't in the standard references," Louise recounted to Quill as they walked into the dining hall.

"Huh. Sounds like there's homebrew being thrown into a system that's already badly made, if you ask me," Quill replied.

"What's 'homebrew,' and what system are you referring to?"

"'Homebrew' generally refers to stuff that's made up."

Louise frowned. "Professor Colbert wouldn't lie about something like that."

"I didn't say he was lying, I was saying it's made up," Quill said. "And a bad system is whatever produced your class."

Okay, wow. That was exceptionally rude. "And I suppose your class system is so much better, with its 'pea seas'?"

"I'd certainly expect somebody with a PC class to be better at magic than an _Aristocrat_ ," Quill replied.

"Oh, yes, I forgot that Fairyland is ninety percent dukes or something," Louise said sarcastically. "And it's all well and good over there to call someone an Aristocrat when they can't even do magic. You were made a Paladin because you can cast, what, one spell?" (The emotional link went a bit funny at this point, but Quill ignored that.)

"I can cast spells _from wands_ ," Quill corrected.

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

Louise looked around for the new voice, and discovered that, for whatever godforsaken reason, Quill had chosen to seat the two of them directly across from Guiche de Gramont and Montmorency Montmorency.

"Could you please elaborate on your ability to cast spells using wands?" Montmorency said smugly. "Because Guiche was just telling me this _fascinating_ theory of his that Louise the Zero bribed a commoner off the street to pretend to be her familiar."

Beside her, a wide-eyed Guiche fumbled for words. "But I – you aren't – you said –"

"That's interesting," Louise said testily. "Seeing as he was present at the summoning ritual, and saw the runes being inscribed. As were you," she said pointedly to Montmorency, who looked a little sheepish.

"Louise the Zero?" Quill interjected. "That's an awesome title. How did you get that?"

"You shut your damned mouth," Louise said hotly. That swine Montmorency was already smiling again.

"Oh, hasn't Louise told you yet about her particular… shall we say, proficiencies in magic?"

"Your magic has proficiencies?" Quill asked, shocked.

He was met by three very strange looks.

"I mean, what would that even do? Can there be non-proficiency penalties on attacks with touch spells and rays?"

"What exactly is he talking about, Louise?" Montmorency asked in a hushed voice, not taking her eyes off of Quill.

"I think he might be a bit off in the head," Louise replied in a normal voice, similarly staring at him. "Say Quill, what happened to shutting your damned mouth?"

"Sorry, Louise, but I have a deliberately developed tendency to not shut my damned mouth. It's a part of my style."

"What? How is that relevant to style?"

"Style is a lot more than just what you wear and how you do your hair, Louise. Not that those are unimportant, of course, but even more important are elements like my dashing confidence and lovable cluelessness, or Guiche's femininity, arrogance, and the perpetual girl hanging off his side. That title of Zero does a fair bit for your style, actually."

Montmorency frowned. "I'm sorry, what was that?"

"'Zero' is not a title, and it is most certainly not a part of my 'style'!"

"Aw, but Louise, it's so cool though! It invokes notions of the absolute and impervious, it's, it's like the sort of thing you might call a really skilled assassin or something!"

"No, I… what was that thing about Guiche, and girls?" Montmorency asked. "I'm not 'perpetually hanging off his side'."

Quill shrugged. "I don't know, this is only the second time I've met him. Seemed pretty significant to his aesthetic though."

"This is the first time I've talked to you," Montmorency said slowly. She turned to look at Guiche, who was sweating bullets.

Louise sighed and buried her face in her hands.

"Uh… Mon Mon, I can explain," Guiche said shakily.

"Please do," Montmorency replied, stony-faced.

"Well, uh… He must have been referring to the ceremony where he was summoned!" Guiche said. "In a sense, he 'met' us at that point as well!"

Montmorency considered this. She had been with Guiche at that point. "That makes sense," she said.

"Haha, yes, of course it does! You know I would never hide anything from you, Mon–"

"Familiar boy. Were you referring to the time that you were summoned as our first meeting?"

"Uh, no. I guess that makes a third time, but it hardly counts. I was talking about the lobby, about forty minutes ago I think."

Montmorency turned back to Guiche.

"Well, he, I –"

"Did you meet with him in the lobby?"

"Well, I, yes, I did, but I wasn't accompanied by –"

"Then why did you lie to me about that?"

"I-I! –"

"Guiche!"

In the manner of a man hearing his own funeral bells, the trembling Guiche slowly turned to face the source of the new voice as she cheerfully ran toward him across the courtyard.

"Katie," he said hollowly.

Quill looked at the brown-haired girl. "Should I know this person?" he asked Louise. He thought he heard a brief, muffled response from behind her concealment in an impenetrable mound of pink hair and hands. _I'll just take that as a no then._

"Guiche!" Katie said again as she reached him, panting. Montmorency had the approximate facial expression of a loaded firearm, and every word Katie spoke hit Guiche like a hammer blow, his eyes darting around as though to find an escape route. "I know you said we'd have lunch together tomorrow, but the weather is so nice today, and I made that soufflé that I was telling you about, I know you said you wanted to –"

Guiche saw his escape route, and desperately seized on it. He took a deep breath, raised a finger and fiercely pointed it at Quill.

"You!" Guiche proclaimed.

"Me," Quill replied.

"Eh?" the three girls said in confused unison, Montmorency momentarily forgetting her anger, Louise her exasperation, and Katie her soufflé.

"How… how very dare you!" Guiche said.

"I very dare however I damned well dare to… very damned dare… damning very well darnation… how," Quill answered, losing track of the thought somewhat.

"What is he damning? Er, daring?" Louise asked. "Has my familiar slighted you in some regard, Guiche?"

"I should say he has!" Guiche said pompously. "This peasant has been slandering my good name and sowing distrust between my beloved and I!"

"What," Louise said flatly. "That is not even slightly true. He is not, in any way, involved in your affairs of stupidity."

"Excuse me!" Quill protested. "If Guiche's name has been slandered, then I will not let stand any accusation that I had no hand in it."

"Yeah, see, he wouldn't…" Louise frowned. "I'm sorry, how does aggregation of negatives work in Albionese?"

"Then you admit to it!" Guiche crowed. "You deceived these lovely ladies, and framed me in an attempt to impugn my honor!"

"Circumstances as well as my own testimony are a strong indication that I am involved in an attempt of your framing, which is related to the relationship between the aforementioned individuals of which I am not," Quill said.

Guiche frowned, trying to puzzle that one out. "Which means that I… bear a grievance against you?"

"That is most likely the case," Quill said levelly.

Guiche's triumphant grin returned. "Then I demand an apology from you, so that I may forgive you and this sordid affair can be put behind us."

Quill smiled. "No."

Guiche's grin slipped a little bit. "Eh?"

"I will not apologize for my actions," Quill said levelly. "To do so would violate my style."

"Ah," Guiche said. "Then… it would seem that I will have to challenge you to a duel!"

Montmorency gasped, so caught up in trying to follow the drama that she put aside the absurdity of Guiche's claims for a moment. Katie looked from person to person, managing to be slightly more lost than Montmorency (primarily by virtue of not understanding Albionese). Quill smiled just a little bit ferally.

"No," Louise said. "No. No, no, no! No! This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard! Guiche, you cannot challenge my familiar to a duel!"

"He just did," Quill pointed out.

"Quill," Louise said, grinding her teeth. "Shut up. Guiche. My familiar has done nothing to slight you. He is not in any way involved in your sleazy pigheadedness, deceit, and stupidity. He is merely an idiot, and I am going to make him apologize for that, to _me_. In the unlikely scenario I find that he has somehow slighted you in a manner disproportionate to what you deserve, then he will apologize to me for that as well, and _I_ will apologize to you. You will _not_ duel him. Duelling isn't even permitted on school grounds."

"Duels between nobles aren't permitted on school grounds," Guiche corrected. "But your familiar is not a noble. Therefore it's fine."

"What? No! Duelling is explicitly a means of settling disputes between nobles! There isn't even a protocol for a commoner to accept a challenge to duel!"

"But there's probably a clause for choosing a champion to represent you, right?" Quill suggested.

"What? Well, yes, but how is that relevant?"

"Because that means he can challenge you, and then you can choose me as a champion!" Quill said excitedly. "That way the challenge is issued between two nobles, but the execution of the actual duel isn't!"

"That would work, yeah!" Guiche said. "It's even more appropriate for me to challenge Louise, since the master is considered responsible for the behavior of the familiar!"

Louise spluttered. "W- B- No! Not under any circumstances will I do that!"

"Familiar boy."

Around the table, heads turned to see that Montmorency had collected herself, and was now staring determinedly at Quill.

"Can you win?"

Louise frowned. "Of course he can't. He's, well… he can't cast spells."

Quill smiled, and this time, there was as much threat to it as mirth. "I can do it," he said. "I've fought mages before."

Montmorency looked over at Louise. "Louise," she said. "I know that you're against this, but… If there's any chance I can see Guiche violently assaultedand publicly humiliated by a commoner, then I'd really appreciate if you could help make that happen."

Louise looked at the three expectant faces (and one nervous one) of her audience.

She sighed.

"Are you serious," she stated. "Fine. Whatever. Beat him into the ground, Guiche. Just don't expect me to pay for his healing bill afterward."

She stormed off toward the castle, muttering.

Montmorency whooped, and Quill and Guiche exchanged a high-five. Katie gave a few uncertain claps.

"All right!" Quill cheered. "What are your terms then?"

"Duel to unconsciousness or submission. If I win, you have to publicly admit that you've wronged these ladies and I, and apologize for it," Guiche said.

"Agreed. And if I win, you, uh, have to apologize to them, and to Louise, for, uh, whatever they're upset about. And kiss me on the lips."

"What?"

"Guiche accepts your terms," Montmorency quickly interjected. "Vestry Court, ten minutes."

o—o—o—o

Stupid familiar. Stupid Guiche. Stupid boys and their stupid duels.

Louise stomped through a corridor, clutching her wand tightly. It trembled and hissed, the wood almost deforming under her grip. A servant cleaning up what remained of a vase from the floor looked up at her approach, blanched, then disappeared as quickly and quietly as he could manage.

Quill was going to get himself killed.

He had no reason to implicate himself in this idiocy. He had nothing to gain from it. Guiche had chosen Quill as a scapegoat, and he had leapt at the task.

And now Quill, _Louise's familiar,_ was going to be out there, embarrassing her, _representing_ her, getting tossed around like a ragdoll and getting his bones broken and –

Louise stopped walking and shuddered.

She should try to stop the match.

But…

She had to admit, the idea kind of appealed to her. Quill had chosen this, eagerly – to pick a fight with somebody higher than him. He… well, he hadn't disobeyed her, really, aside from on the matter of mouths and the shutting thereof… but he had definitely worked around her, contradicting her claims, working with Guiche's idiocy and baiting it into escalation. Louise had given him outs, and he had rejected them. Maybe he should feel the bruises for that.

And when he came crawling back to Louise, bloodied and helpless… Then she would have an actual position of power over him. Aside from the inherent one between familiar and master, of course. She would have earned his respect. Or, well, at least, through his stupidity, he would have lost his claim to her respect, that he had earned through being courteous and obedient, and he would need to work to regain it. That would provide ample opportunity to set some ground rules for being a familiar.

Louise smiled. It was not a nice smile.

Then she began to stride quietly toward the courtyard.

o—o—o—o—o—o—o

The two combatants stood facing each other at a distance of slightly less than the standard ten meters used for dueling. Quill had insisted on it, citing some odd sentiment about his own units being simpler to work with, and Guiche had agreed to it due to the fact that the difference at that scale was basically negligible.

A large crowd was gathered around the two. Once Montmorency had explained the situation, Katie had been very willing to help her gather people to watch, and word had spread like wildfire. With the prospects of violence, humiliation, and kissing, and with the potential that any of those might be occurring to Guiche de Gramont, almost everyone had developed at least a mild interest in the fight. Due to Quill being something of an unknown factor, bets were being made on the match; of course, Quill being a diminutive commoner, and Guiche being one of the academy's better mages, the going odds were twenty to one in the latter's favor.

Quill shifted impatiently, partly out of eagerness but mostly due to holding an aggressive stance designed for charging at opponents. He re-readied his action for the next round. It was unlikely that the duel would start without warning, but there was no sense in taking unnecessary chances. "You sure you want to do this? I've killed more men than you've slept with, pretty boy," Quill said tauntingly, engaging in the customary ritual of pre-battle trash talk. Aside from fun, trash talk counted as Perform (Oratory), allowing him to Inspire himself and gain a +1 bonus to hit and to damage.

"Ha! Is that so? Tell me, was the poor knave asleep at the time?" Guiche parried. "I think I may duel you for his honor as well, then!"

"This duel will be between Guiche de Gramont and the familiar of Louise de la Valliere, fighting in her place as champion," Montmorency announced, her voice amplified by wind magic from some helpful student. "It will end in either unconsciousness or submission. All methods are to be non-lethal, and severe or permanent injuries are –" She hesitated. "–Discouraged. In the case of Guiche's victory, the familiar will admit to going against his master's will and facilitating Guiche's two-timing and pig-headedness, and publicly apologize to all parties involved."

"N-now that's not exactly how I would state –"

Quill whooped, interrupting Guiche's attempt at protest. "Whoo yeah! Hooray for whatever she just said!"

"In the case of the familiar's victory," Montmorency continued unswayed, "Guiche himself will apologize for his duplicity to the wronged parties. Furthermore, he will absolve Louise and her familiar of any wrongdoing, and apologize for all accusations he has made of them. He will also kiss the familiar on the lips, in a public setting, for a duration no briefer than three seconds' time." There was a cheer from some of the girls in the audience.

"I feel like you've added a number of conditions that we never agreed to," Guiche objected. Montmorency sent him a glare that could shrivel a cabbage. "That is to say, uh, carry on!"

"Guiche de Gramont," Montmorency asked. "Are you ready?"

"A de Gramont is always ready," Guiche said, regaining some of his luster as he addressed this statement partially to Quill. He drew his rose-petal wand.

Quill raised an eyebrow. "You're bringing that to a duel?" he asked snidely.

"Think you to mock my choice of wand, peasant? I'll have you know that the rose is an unparalleled symbol of elegance, and I can think of no better form to represent my personage."

"Oh, it certainly does that well."

"Familiar of Zero," Montmorency asked. "Are you ready?"

 _"Thurgix onureth verthicha loreat *throden* kear. Versvesh clax korth persvek *vargach*, clax vivex vur clax *rasvim*,"_ Quill said, manually drawing his Guisarme. He noticed that the runes on his hand were glowing. Maybe they would provide some sort of bonus on his attacks?

"Couldn't you have brought a sword and at least pretended to have some class?" said Guiche. "Honestly, that pointed stick makes you look both primitive and like you're compensating for something."

"Oh yeah, like I haven't heard that one before," Quill smirked. "Since I'm the one with experience, trust me when I say that size matters… and that's especially true when you handle it as well as I do."

"Oh, I'm sure you're exceptionally used to 'handling it'," Guiche replied with a superior grin.

"Are you actually ready?" Montmorency asked. "I didn't quite catch your answer."

"Oh, uh, yes. Seriously, school full of casters and nobody knows Draconic?"

Montmorency raised her wand. "Then let the duel begin!"

A loud bang sounded across the courtyard, and for the first time ever, only a single character rolled for initiative.

o—o—o—o

Louise shifted to make sure her face wasn't visible behind the shadow of her cowl. She would be present for the match, of course, but it wouldn't do to let Quill know that she cared at all.

After some consideration, she had bet 15 ecu on Quill. It was a bit crass, but she figured that as his master she probably had some sort of moral imperative to be rooting for him in even a conflict she disapproved of, and the bet was small, but large enough that it ensured which was her preferred outcome.

She was still in the process of considering whether revealing that she had made this bet on him and lost money would strengthen or weaken her case when scolding him later.

o—o—o—o

"I am known as Guiche the Bronze," Guiche said, flourishing his wand, "so your opponent today – gah!" Guiche yelped and stumbled backwards, as his field of vision was suddenly filled with Quill.

Quill simply grinned. While he had lost the initiative, he _had_ been able to take a move action he had readied before the duel, and he had correctly guessed that Guiche wouldn't expect this – and thus wasn't casting defensively. It seemed that Guiche preferred to stop casting the spell rather than take an armor-spikes-based attack of opportunity, presumably under the assumption that the damage would be likely to cause the loss of the spell anyways. A somewhat undignified five-foot step later, it was Quill's turn.

The guisarme arced down, and rose petals burst everywhere. The crowd gasped. Quill once again stepped up to his opponent.

Quill couldn't guarantee that he could knock Guiche unconscious in one hit. He had, however, surmised from his conversation with Louise that the foci of these mages, or "wands," were quite important to their spellcasting. Thus, it would be entirely reasonable for Guiche to have a backup wand, if not several. If he didn't, Quill had just won the duel.

If Guiche _did_ have a backup wand, he couldn't draw it in Quill's threatened area without provoking an attack of opportunity. He also presumably couldn't cast in Quill's threatened area without a chance of fizzling from a failed concentration check.

If Guiche wanted to leave Quill's threatened area, he would have to step more than five feet back, and thus provoke an AoO. This would also give Quill the opportunity to charge at him, gaining +2 on his attack roll and +2 damage from his stance.

 _Let's see a_ sword _control the battlefield like that,_ Quill thought with satisfaction. _And they saysize doesn't matter._

"You broke my wand!" Guiche said, shocked. "How very dare you!"

"I dare to very… I'm a daring person," Quill replied. "Care to surrender yet, or do you want to try out your fists and find out what being a man feels like?"

Guiche laughed. "Oh, that's funny. You're a funny person, Quill. More than I expected in combat, too. But honestly, did you really think it would be so easy? What kind of noble would I be without a backup?"

And Guiche pulled a much longer rod from his belt than Quill was expecting. For some reason, it didn't provoke an attack of opportunity. _What? Is that a weapon, some kind of club or something? Does he really think he can –_

Then he shouted a brief incantation, and a pillar of earth erupted, launching Quill backwards.

 _Oh, he's good,_ Quill thought as he landed prone, taking a pittance of damage in the process. Drawing a wand would provoke an AoO, of course, but drawing a weapon wouldn't, so if the focus _was_ a weapon, or inside the wand chamber of one…

"Not bad," Quill called out, still grinning. He spent a move action getting to his feet, another one approaching Guiche. He then used his swift action and executed the Sudden Leap maneuver, springing forward in a blindingly fast ten-foot single stride which an eladrin would envy … but which didn't quite put him within reach. "I do hope that wasn't supposed to actually hurt me?"

"I didn't need to," Guiche responded, managing to flip his hair handsomely as he walked backward to keep Quill at a safer distance. "It's been a fun warm-up, but now you face your real opponent. Arise, valkyries!"

Guiche pointed his sword-wand at the ground between himself and Quill, and six spots of light appeared, before bursting into imposing greenish metal warriors.

 _Wait, six?_ Now that was worrying. Five could be the result of a Summon Monster spell cast to summon two levels below its list. For six, one would have to empower the spell as well. That was only possible at Quill's level if one was using significant metamagic reducers, and these certainly looked tougher than the monsters off the level one list. They were probably feat-augmented as well, considering Guiche was clearly a specialist to be able to summon with a standard action. It seemed that Quill might be a little outside his CR range at the moment. Those "valkyries" would be an effective form of battlefield control, making a shield wall that would force him to take AoOs and prevent him from charging past it. Then they would pursue him from behind as Guiche hammered Quill against his tactical anvil. Guiche was an excellent combatant, and Quill was almost ready to concede the battle.

"It was a good try, but this is why a commoner simply cannot compete against a noble on the field of battle. Charge, valkyries!"

…Or Guiche could make a tactical misstep.

Quill's grin widened as the metallic soldiers lowered their spears at him. This was almost unfair. Of course, on an open field, Guiche would have the summons that could charge, do so. Outnumbering him so, the attack bonus was easily more important than the AC lost.

Guiche couldn't have known, or even reasonably surmised, that Quill was wearing a fabulous pair of magical boots which allowed him to make a free, and boosted, attack against any opponent that charged him.

As the valkyries charged, Quill's guisarme whirled almost too fast to see. Six blows landed. Six metal bodies, cut through like butter. Another, much louder, round of gasps from the crowd.

That… had been a bit too effective. Huh. Quill's attack modifier had been three higher than it typically was, and his damage was _six_ higher than its usual, before the doubling from Steadfast Boots. Was this the effect of the familiar runes? It was rather more powerful than he expected.

Well, best not to cast _Detect Evil_ on a gift horse. Quill couldn't do that anyway.

"I-impossible!" Guiche said, shaking.

"Maybe last week it was," Quill said, then winced. _Wow, that line sucked. Still counts for the morale bonus, at least._ He lowered his guisarme and charged across the newly clear field, aiming for Guiche's side, right under the ribcage, with the flat of his blade. With the new bonus, he was very likely to hit even with the attack penalty for dealing nonlethal damage, and there was a decent chance that a good hit might be enough to take Guiche out of the fight entirely –

"I yield!" Guiche cried as Quill drew back his weapon.

Or that could happen. Quill stopped himself, the guisarme's blade inches away from Guiche.

There was a moment of silence. Quill, brimming with a feeling of power from his new level, made a snap decision, and allocated two skill points.

"That was a good match," he said in perfect Tristainian. "Well fought."

And the crowd exploded.

o—o—o—o—o—o—o

Author's Note (again): There's actually a specific mechanical reason for why Quill's new bonuses are +3/+6! A digital cookie goes to anyone who figures it out.


End file.
